Lady Deathwhisper
The lich Lady Deathwhisper is the Supreme Overseer of the Cult of the Damned and the second boss of the Icecrown Citadel raid. Especially on Heroic difficulty this is an encounter that is about both DPS, survival and control in equal measures, with a large number of different abilities thrown at the raid. The 25-player Heroic version of this boss is one of the most difficult encounters in the instance. Abilities 25-player mode Lady Deathwhisper ;Both Phases * ::Note: Lady Deathwhisper's D&D uses the same animation as a death knight's but her is a distinct green color, making it easy to distinguish from a friendly player's D&D. * ;Phase one only * * * * * ;Phase two only * * * * Cult Adherent/Empowered Adherent/Reanimated Adherent *Health: 220,000 * * * * * * * Cult Fanatic/Deformed Fanatic/Reanimated Fanatic * * * * * Vengeful Shade * 10-player mode Lady Deathwhisper ;Both Phases * ;Phase one only * * * * * ;Phase two only * * * * Cult Adherent *Health: 220,000 Empowered Adherent Reanimated Adherent * * * * * * * Cult Fanatic/Deformed Fanatic/Reanimated Fanatic * * * * * Vengeful Shade * Strategy This encounter bears some similarity to M'uru in Sunwell Plateau. It hinges on quickly picking up the spawns and proper balance between DPS-ing Deathwhisper and killing the add-waves, especially on 25-player or heroic mode. Ranged DPS in particular need to switch their target frequently, and be highly aware of the general situation. Her enrage timer is 10 minutes. Phase One Lady Deathwhisper is protected by her Mana Shield, which converts damage taken to mana lost. Phase 2 starts as soon as she has taken enough damage to bring her mana to zero. If Phase 1 takes longer than 7 minutes, there may not be enough time remaining to kill her in Phase 2 before she enrages. During Phase 1 she cannot be tanked and spams Shadow Bolt, Death and Decay and Dominate Mind on random raid members (Dominate Mind is only cast in 25-player mode, it affects one raid member in normal mode, and mutltiple targets in heroic mode). The mind controlled raid members need to be Crowd Controlled. After 5 seconds of combat and every 60 seconds thereafter seven adds (three in 10 man, alternating left, then right) spawn. The three gates on the left side of the room always spawn two fanatics and one adherent, the right side gates one fanatic and two adherents. A seventh add of a random type spawns on the stairs (Only in 25 man). All types of adds can be CC'd. Living adds can explode (dark martyrdom) at random times, which deals AoE damage and turns them into their reanimated versions. Reanimated Fanatics (melee) are immune to physical damage, Reanimated Adherents are immune to magical damage. Also at random, Lady Deathwhisper buffs living adds. Buffed Adherents become "Empowered Adherents", adding an uninterruptible AOE spell to their abilities, buffed Fanatics are "Deformed Fanatics" and double their melee damage output. These four special add types are the most dangerous, and must be killed as priority targets. Adherents are caster mobs who spam deathchill bolt, put a cooldown increasing curse on random players, and sometimes shield themselves with a spell reflect shield. The shield (Shroud of the Occult) takes 50,000 damage to remove. While the shield is on them, typical silencing effects like do not work. Fanatics have a high melee DPS output and a vicious cleave (melee DPS must take care to stand behind them). When buffed (as Deformed Fanatics), they double their damage output. Deformed Fanatics should be kited, which is quite easy because their movement speed is halved. Fanatics (either normal or deformed) are sometimes buffed with Vampiric Might which is another 25% damage increase, plus a self heal for 3x the damage they cause. This can (and should) be removed with a Shaman's or a Mage's . Because this will actually benefit the Mage when stolen, preference should be given to having the Mages steal this buff. Basic Tactic A basic method is to assign three tanks to the spawn locations. The left and right sides also get a fixed set of melee damage dealers (more to the right side, fewer to the left). When adds spawn, all ranged DPS switch and kill the adds right where they spawn. After all adds are dead, all damage dealers switch back to the Boss, a few seconds prior to the next wave, melee run back to the spawn locations. This method feels rather natural and it leads to a rather distributed setup, which helps minimizing the effect of Death and Decay. The drawbacks are rather low DPS (particularly by melee), and frequent target switching. With some practice, melee can concentrate on the caster adds, and ranged help on the melee adds, if overall DPS is high enough, ranged need to switch only if one of the special adds comes up. Adherents can be gathered by Line of sight pulling, using the nearby walls. Because of their heavy reliance on DoTs, Affliction Warlocks and Shadow Priests might be more useful if they're assigned to continually attack the boss, and only attack the adds if need be as burst damage tends to bring the adds down fairly quickly. Alternate Tactic A different approach is to group all ranged and healers behind the boss (opposite to the stairs), and set up the tanks and melee group on the stairs side of the boss (on the edge of her hitbox). The whole raid hits the boss until adds spawn. At that time, the DPS casters set up an AoE kill zone (including some snares) right on the melee group. Adds normally aggro healers. Melee adds try to move to them and usually die while passing through the kill zone. Caster adds frequently stop outside the kill zone (and their shields protect them from the AoE). As in the normal method, tanks and melee must move to the caster adds, but the casters stand much closer to the melee group, and thus melee don't have to run far.The special add types still need extra care. The advantage of this tactic is that damage output is substantially higher, and AoE healing is more effective. The drawback is that the raid stands quite concentrated on one spot, this makes Death and Decay much more dangerous. Phase Two After her shield is down, Lady Deathwhisper switches to a new set of abilities, she gets an aggro table (in effect her threat is reset) and also starts to melee and cast Frostbolt volley. No more Adherents or Fanatics spawn, instead Vengeful Spirits randomly spawn near players. Her Frostbolt spell should be interrupted. Dominate Mind and Death and Decay continue as before. She stacks an ability called Touch of Insignificance on her tank. This reduces threat generation by 20% per stack (stacks to 5). On normal difficulty, she can be taunted. Vengeful Spirits pick a random target and follow it for 10 seconds, they explode for 25,000 shadowfrost AoE damage when they catch up. In normal difficulty it's possible to heal through this, in heroic mode probably not. Players targeted by a Vengeful Spirit need to kite it until it goes away. Heroic Mode On the Public Test Realm Heroic difficulty had limited testing. Other than every ability simply hitting harder the main difference in the encounter that may encourage groups to alter their strategy is a shortened enrage timer and doubled hit points (but not mana) on Lady Deathwhisper herself thus greatly extending phase two. If the heroic encounter is similar to the M'uru encounter on which it seems to be modelled on it is highly unlikely you will be able to focus all of your DPS on the add waves as they come, you will simply lose too much DPS on Deathwhisper herself. It seems likely that you will need to CC at least some of the adds through the entirety of phase 2 in order to beat the enrage timer, at least until the encounter is outgeared. Confirmed live heroic mode differences: *Immune to taunt. *Three mind controls on 25-man, one on 10-man. *Adds continue to spawn in phase 2. *Vengeful Shades explode in a 20 yard radius instead of single target. One novel strategy is to have one tank kite the Fanatics around the room for the entirety of the fight much like the Razorgore the Untamed encounter in Blackwing Lair since they are affected by all movement impairing effects. Minion summary Quotes ;Intro : : : : : : : ;Aggro * ;Phase Two * ;Dominate Mind * ;Dark Empowerment * ;Dark Transformation * ;Animate Dead * ;Killing a player * * ;Berserk * ;Death * Loot Normal mode Heroic mode Related Achievements Patch changes * * Trivia *Lady Deathwhisper is the only lich in the game known to be female. *Her model's name is called the "Minister of Death". Videos 10-player Normal encounter C_L1d17e77I Ag_Na7DfGG8 10-player Heroic encounter KHOcfxlpQdk 25-player Normal encounter QRmvM7tjRUw 9XtvZSVs2Tw 25-player Heroic encounter ChlkaXh3YTw 3jdajNLTS08 Additional videos External links Category:Liches Category:Cult of the Damned Category:Scourge Category:Bosses Category:Icecrown Citadel mobs Category:Unique models